Employers on Strike

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Wall Street Journal:

It's too bad we can't do the Census every year, because maybe the U.S. economy would then show some jobs growth. That quip was one of the rueful asides we heard yesterday as Americans learned that the economy created a net total of 431,000 new jobs in May, including 411,000 temporary Census hires.

The private economy—that is, the wealth creation part, not the wealth redistribution part—gained only 41,000 jobs, down sharply from the encouraging 218,000 in April, and 158,000 in March. The unemployment rate did fall to 9.7% from 9.9%, but that was mainly because the labor force contracted by 322,000. Millions of Americans, beyond the 15 million Americans officially counted as unemployed, have given up looking for work.

Worst of all, nearly half of all unemployed workers in America today (a record 46%) have been out of work for six months or more. Normally job growth accelerates during the early stages of an economic rebound, but this dismal report suggests that the recovery remains well short of becoming a typical expansion.

There were some slivers of good news in the May jobs report. For those who have jobs, the average work week rose by 0.1 hours to 34.2 hours and earnings nudged upward by 0.3%. Manufacturers added 29,000 workers, and their hours worked jumped 5.1%, the best since 1983.

Perhaps this is what White House chief economist Christina Romer was looking at yesterday when she cited "encouraging developments" in the jobs market and "continuing signs of labor market recovery." We doubt this was the private reaction in the Oval Office, whose occupant was told by Ms. Romer and economic co-religionist Jared Bernstein that the February 2009 stimulus would kick start a recovery in growth and jobs. Whatever happened to the great neo-Keynesian "multiplier," in which $1 in government spending was supposed to produce 1.5 times that in economic output?
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And there's the rub: the only one who benefits from government spending is government.

[Valin]

 

And there's the rub: the only one who benefits from government spending is government.

 

 

And there's something about this that surprises you?